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Key federal independent MP Tony Windsor says a change of leader would not necessarily bring down the Labor minority government.
Mr Windsor, together with crossbench colleague Rob Oakeshott, signed an agreement following the 2010 federal election in which they guarantee the Gillard government their confidence in parliament’s lower house and to support supply.
The MP insists that agreement is with Prime Minister Julia Gillard and not transferable to anyone else.
But a new Labor leader might not need any formal agreement for the minority government to remain in power, Mr Windsor said.
‘Minority governments can be formed without written agreements,’ he told ABC Radio on Friday, adding that Ms Gillard could have assumed government until Labor’s numbers were tested in parliament.
‘The new leader could enter parliament and assume the government benches until a vote of the parliament says he or she couldn’t.’
Mr Windsor’s comments come amid renewed speculation about the future of Ms Gillard’s leadership.
His oft-stated ‘all-bets-would-be-off’ stance, in the event of a leadership change, has been seen as impediment to the return of Kevin Rudd.
Mr Windsor refused to say whether he was less inclined to support a minority government led by Mr Rudd.
‘If I’m confronted with it, I’ll look at it,’ he said, adding he did not think Labor would dump Ms Gillard.
Senior Labor figures this week have been keen to play down any suggestion Ms Gillard is under threat from a second leadership challenge within six months.
The latest round of speculation was sparked by the comments of chief government whip Joe Fitzgibbon who cast doubt on any political leader’s ability to remain in office without popular support.
Ms Gillard and Labor are languishing in the polls with an election likely in late 2013.
The prime minister continues to enjoy strong support amongst key unions with one reportedly threatening to withdraw $200,000 in political donations to the Labor Party if MPs dump Ms Gillard in favour of Mr Rudd.
Transport Workers Union boss Tony Sheldon told The Australian that Mr Rudd would be a ‘disaster’ for the union movement.
He said Mr Rudd could not be trusted to represent union members and would lose the election if he seized the leadership.
Sources told the newspaper that Mr Sheldon told a meeting of union leaders on Tuesday that a ‘small minority’ of MPs – whom he described as ‘dickheads’ – was continuing to push for Mr Rudd to return to the leadership
He warned that if Mr Rudd was elected leader by caucus, his union’s national office and its state branches would refuse to make financial contributions to federal Labor’s re-election campaign
The Greens say Port Waratah Coal Services (PWCS) should put its plans to expand its Kooragang Island terminal on hold until the causes of a possible cancer cluster are found.
A Newcastle University study released yesterday found workers at the site are nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with cancer than the average New South Wales resident.
It also found the employees were three times more likely than Carrington terminal PWCS workers to develop the disease.
The study compared details of 859 employees at Port Waratah Coal Services over a 23-year period, with cancer records for New South Wales and Australia.
63 workers were diagnosed with cancer, with the most common being melanoma, prostate and colon cancer.
Professor of Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology from Newcastle University, John Attia says the study did not pinpoint a cause for the high incidence of the disease, and further investigation is recommended.
“The study didn’t look at any soil samples or water samples or air samples so we can’t pinpoint what it is that might be causing this, but it’s something that’s different between Kooragang and Carrington,” he said.
“One of the recommendations was that an independent occupational hygienist engage to look specifically at the physical environment and work processes and see what might be causing it.”
Port Waratah Coal Services has put forward a $5 billion proposal to build a massive new coal terminal at Kooragang Island, but Greens MP John Kaye says the project should now be put on the backburner.
“In the absence of an airtight explanation for the elevated rates of cancer at Kooragang Island, it would be immoral to push ahead with T4 and expose yet more workers on that island to a higher risk of really bad health consequences,” he said.
“Planning for this terminal should be delayed for as long as it takes to find out what is causing an elevated rate of cancer on Kooragang Island, and how that can be avoided.”
The Company says it has been advised there is no established link between the occupational environment and the types of cancers common among employees.
PWCS CEO Hennie Du Plooy says the results are being explained to all employees.
“We’ve engaged specialist advice in this area and our advisers are actually helping us communicate this and interpret this for our employees,” he said.
“So that we can demonstrate that, while the report identifies an increased risk, there is – according to our advice – a low likelihood the risk and the cancers identified have a link to occupational exposure.”
The Maritime Union is calling for a government investigation into cancer rates at all workplaces on Kooragang Island.
Employees are worried the site’s history as an industrial waste area could be to blame for the higher than expected incidence of cancer among workers.
Glen Williams from the Newcastle branch of the Maritime Union says there needs to be more research covering the entire area.
“The results at Kooragang give us great concern as to what’s going on up there,” he said.
“If it’s something in the water on Kooragang, if it’s something in the air, those are questions we need answered.”
IN THE showdown in February with the former prime minister Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard had almost unanimous support from MPs who owe their position to the union movement.
But following discussions among unions this week, union leaders concede they can no longer hold their MPs in behind the Prime Minister.
The meeting of union leaders discussed how to handle a leadership change if it could not be prevented, as senior Labor figures concede Gillard’s prospects of staying in the job are receding.
In February Gillard had almost unanimous support from the union movement and leaders – including the Australian Workers Union chief, Paul Howes – who lobbied the caucus members associated with their organisations.
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But senior Labor figures and several MPs have told the Herald that unions, including the AWU – which has at least 15 closely associated MPs – have indicated they would not be as active in defending Gillard in another ballot, even though they were not supporting a shift.
In part the change is an acknowledgment of reality, with MPs less fearful of threats to their preselections because opinion polls indicate they are likely to lose their seats at the next election.
”The AWU is not plumping for a change but they are not standing in the way either … that is a significant change in attitude,” a Labor figure said.
The stance is similar to that of the NSW Right faction, as support in that grouping shifts from Gillard.
Union leaders confirmed yesterday that the leadership had been discussed at a meeting this week, but strongly denied there was any shift in their strong support for Gillard.
”The discussion really was about how we would handle a change if it became unstoppable,” one source said. ”It was not a conversation that could be considered in any way supportive of Kevin Rudd.”
The ACTU secretary, Dave Oliver, said: ”Nothing has changed at all. The movement is
supportive of Prime Minister Gillard and her government for the work that is being done on the issues that matter to us most.” And Howes tweeted from Washington that suggestions the union movement was shifting support were ”complete b-s”.
The unions, which imposed a $2 levy on members to establish a $4 million election fighting fund, are deeply concerned that on the latest polling the Coalition would win control of the Senate, putting it in a position to reverse all the industrial relations changes Labor has made.
They are also worried about changes a Coalition government is likely to make to political donations laws, which would break the funding link between Labor’s political and industrial arms.
In NSW the Coalition government has banned donations from organisations, including unions, and in Queensland the Newman government plans to force members of organisations to vote before they can make a donation to a political party.
Labor’s latest returns to the Australian Electoral Commission show that after the 2010 election it was almost $15 million in debt. Corporate donations are evaporating.
On the latest poll figures, Labor would receive 1 million fewer votes across both houses than it did at the last election, which would slice about $2.5 million from the public funding on which it is increasingly reliant.
MPs, who are in their electorates for the winter break, are concerned that despite a fairly smooth introduction of the carbon tax there is no sign of a turnaround in the polls or a lessening of public hostility towards Gillard. But many are unenthusiastic about change.
In February Gillard beat Rudd by 71 votes to 31, including 12 from the NSW Right faction, which would now deliver her five or six votes.
There has also been some shift in the Victorian Right, amid speculation that the former AWU chief and now Workplace Relations Minister, Bill Shorten, could become deputy prime minister to Rudd.
Any new leader would have to renegotiate the support of the independents and the Greens that has allowed Gillard to form government.
Yesterday the independent Tony Windsor said his agreement was ”not a transferable document” and a change would mean ”all bets are off”.
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